


Cold Hands

by Flufferdoodle



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Crack, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, M/M, no actual sexual content sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28972890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flufferdoodle/pseuds/Flufferdoodle
Summary: tfw you're out with your boyfriend but all you can think about is how cold your hands are
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	Cold Hands

Ren’s hands are cold.

He doesn’t wear gloves often, not like Akechi, and he left his only pair at home. They’re not red. If they were red, he might look down and think he’s somewhere he’s not and doing things he no longer gets to do, so they’re blue instead. And his coat is brown, and his shoes have yellow and green-striped laces, courtesy of Futaba.

His pockets are uncomfortable due to the crumbs of a half-eaten granola bar shoved in the morning before since he slept through the alarm and Akechi was banging on his door and he had to eat _something_ before getting on the train, so now he has to ignore the sensation of dried oat bits rubbing against his knuckles as he walks down the street. He would hold Akechi’s hand, but he can’t get any of the warmth through Akechi’s glove, and if he told Akechi his hands were cold then Akechi would give him that look and make some comment about Ren’s inability to plan ahead.

Ren wonders when they’ll reach a café to sit down and warm up. Ren also wonders how to clean crumbs out of a pocket. That was something he could probably ask Ann later; all of her clothes were pristine, and there’s no way she’d made it this far in life without shoving a half-eaten granola bar into her pocket.

Or maybe she had? A lot of her clothes didn’t have pockets.

This had been a point of discussion before. At game night. All the girls had talked about their lack of pockets, and Futaba ranted against the purse industry for capitalizing on poor design.

“What’s on your mind?” Akechi asks. “You seem a bit absent.”

Sometimes, when this happens and Akechi asks him why he’s not paying attention, Ren wishes he had something cool to say. Something about human nature, or the Metaverse, or their convoluted histories.

He never does.

It’s always something stupidly mundane.

“Why do men’s clothes have good pockets while women’s don’t?” he says instead. “Wouldn’t it be an even bigger business opportunity for designers if they made us need bags too?”

Akechi’s eyes widen a little bit in surprise, like they always do.

“I’ve… actually never thought about that,” Akechi admits.

At least he always has the small victory of catching Akechi off-guard, though he’s never quite sure how.

“Of course, I generally need my attache case or a bag with me anyways,” Akechi ponders. “I would suppose that it would have something to do with the history of women’s clothing not having built-in pockets for a long time past anyways, so it was easier to keep them on purses. Now, if a clothing provider tried to sell a man pants without decent pockets, they’d lose business too quickly. It’d require a lot of cooperation among competitors to all start selling pants with bad pockets and force men to start buying bags, and competitors generally avoid cooperation.”

Ren remembered a lecture in his economics class on game theory, and figured it’d make him smart to bring it up, but he’s not sure how well he remembers it. He just took econ his first year in university to see if he’d like it (he didn’t). He chooses not to bring it up.

“Wouldn’t it make sense that if a women’s clothing provider sold pants with real pockets they’d dominate competition among women, then?” Ren asks.

“Not if they already own purses and have no need for pants with pockets now,” Akechi says.

It’s snowing a little bit again, and Ren wonders if he can use the tube end of the vacuum to get the crumbs out of his pockets. Maybe a lint roller? Would he solve the problem if he just put his jacket in the laundry machine? Maybe Kawakami knew how to handle it. Would it be weird if he called the maid service now? He hadn’t seen her in a long time.

“I bet some would be happy to ditch their purses.” Futaba never even bought one to begin with, always opting to stuff her belongings in jacket pockets or foist them on Ren. “I think Makoto would. It’s more practical. Also Ann when she’s on big shopping sprees and has more bags to carry.”

“Thinking of starting a clothing business, Ren?”

Ren shakes his head. “I just think it’s a good idea.”

“I’m certain it’s been done before.”

“Maybe not well enough.”

“There’s a lot more to clothing than just utility, though. For instance…” Akechi hovers closer to him, and Ren looks down to see his cheeks tinged pink from the cold. His eyes trail down to Akechi’s scarf, and Ren briefly imagines shoving his hands into the warmth between the fabric and Akechi’s neck. He wants, _so badly_ , for his hands to be warm. “I believe you chose those jeans in the hopes of impressing me, yes?” Akechi’s left hand appears on Ren’s hip, fingertips gently curling into Ren’s ass.

Ren bets Akechi’s hands are just a little bit warm in his gloves after being stuffed in his own pockets as they meandered down the street. Akechi always had a habit of waiting for Ren to hold his hand during their first stretch of walking, and on days like this when Ren forgot his gloves and it was snowing, he inevitably wound up disappointed. Ren hopes Akechi doesn’t overthink it too much, but knows he probably does. He probably has a mental count of how many times Ren has committed the crime of not demonstrating their relationship properly.

Ren would tell him not to worry, except he kind of wants to see in what manner Akechi will eventually blow up for this, and he doesn’t want to admit to Akechi that his hands are uncomfortably cold because he forgot his gloves in the hotel room this morning.

Ren slides his freezing-crumbly-hand over Akechi’s and applies just a little pressure and _oh-god-the-outside-of-Akechi’s-glove-is-so-cold_ and smiles a bit.

Actually, Ann chose the jeans and said they’d make Akechi stare at his ass, and Ren thought that sounded great.

“Of course not. You’re already impressed,” Ren says. _And if I told you that all I can think about right now is how cold my hands are, you’d be significantly less impressed._ He stares at Akechi’s scarf longingly.

“Bold,” Akechi laughs, and he abruptly turns back to the street, slipping his (gloved) hand into Ren’s, because yes, he definitely noticed and was quietly bothered they weren’t holding hands. And now Ren’s hand was _extra_ cold. Maybe he could charge up the other one in his pocket and they could switch sides in a bit and let his other hand freeze.

“Someone’s gotta be, considering you still dress like a grandpa,” Ren says. _A warm grandpa._

“And yet I always seem to be the last one undressed,” Akechi hums.

“Probably because it takes more time to take off three layers of collared shirts and sweater vests than it does to remove, you know, a normal t-shirt and jacket,” Ren suggests.

“Perhaps,” Akechi says as they walk by a lingerie store, “you could do with something more than that.” He pulls them to a stop in front of a window display featuring a mannequin in cat ears with dark red and black garters and underwear so thick with laces it was impossible to see through it. “Hm. I think that’d suit you, wouldn’t it?”

Any shame Ren might’ve had was destroyed by an incredibly disconcerting argument between Ryuji and Ann about three years ago, which Haru happily spectated with him. So he looks Akechi straight in the eye and states, “That looks purr-fect.”

Akechi raises his eyebrows, but he’s not surprised. “It’s only 3,000 yen,” he says. “Want to give it a shot?”

“Only if we find you a maid outfit,” Ren says, because now he’s feeling guilty about the fact he hasn’t actually talked to Kawakami in years and the only reason he’s considering now is to figure out how to get crumbs out of his pocket and he always thought her maid outfit was cool.

Akechi hums. “With the way our studies are going and your culinary inclinations, I believe it’d be far more likely for you to be picking up the chores, don’t you think?”

“You’d trust me to iron your clothes?”

Akechi’s nose crinkles and Ren wants to kiss it. He does so. Akechi’s nose is cold, Ren’s lips are warm.

“You make a good point. Perhaps not,” Akechi mutters. “But I can’t cook.”

“We can fix that.”

“You can try.”

 _I can also try to warm up my hands._ “Do you want to look around?” Ren asks.

“I think I just want that,” Akechi nods, “for you.”

Ren looks at the cat ears and sighs.

The store is not warm enough inside to do anything about Ren’s hand situation. He quickly excuses himself to the bathroom while Akechi buys the cat ear set and lord-knows-what and turns the sink on.

The water is cold.

Ren adjusts the faucet.

The water is colder.

God. Damn. It.

He dries his hands with a towel and presses them against his neck, absorbing all the warmth he can in the little time he has, then attempts to dump the crumbs out of his pocket into the tiny trash can, and then somebody walks in and gives him a weird look and Ren is forced to walk back out to Akechi and his stupid gloved hands.

Akechi smiles at him and Ren smiles back. Akechi knows something is wrong because somehow Ren doesn’t smile correctly.

“Do you not want the lingerie?” Akechi asks as they step outside. “You don’t need to wear it.”

Ren looks at him, a little confused. “No? The lingerie is fine. I’ve worn worse.”

“You- what? When?”

Ren shrugs. “I kept working at Crossroads for a couple years and Lala-chan set me up with a couple other places for shows.”

Akechi’s face darkens, and Ren mentally awards himself a point for getting Akechi to stutter earlier. Ren likes to think he’s generally winning in this relationship, but he knows Akechi would disagree.

“Do… Do you still have what you wore?”

“No. It was all borrowed.”

“Is that sanitary?”

“Laundry machines… exist?” But Ren _did_ have Kawakami wash it all an extra time before he tried it on, just to be safe. She had just sighed and said she was glad it wasn’t more weird space gear. Ren really needed to touch base with her and see how things were going.

“Wow,” Akechi mutters. “Do you want to head back and try all this on?”

Ren would love to go back and set his hands directly on their furnace and burn them.

“Sure.”

The walk back is too slow for both of them, and the hotel is too cold for Ren and too warm for Akechi and Akechi takes his gloves off but doesn’t hold Ren’s hand again until they’re in the room, and as they each start to shed their layers Ren catches a glimpse of Akechi’s back between his shirt and pants and he can’t take it anymore.

He strides over, silent as a thief, and shoves his ice cold hands up Akechi’s shirt against his warm body.

“ _REN WHAT THE FU-”_

**Author's Note:**

> in case anyone read some of my other fics and wondered why in this and catblocked i switched to ren, you don't need to lose any more sleep over this daunting mystery. it's because i was watching the anime and ryuji called him "renren"  
> anyways i might figure out how to actually write akechi in character one day, but that day isn't really today or tomorrow or anytime next week i think


End file.
